FIRE

You have seen the post of us cutting and bailing hay this year and my daughter playing while her daddy stacked it.

This morning we awoke to a panicked call from Dustin's cousin. The neighbor on his way to work saw one stack of hay on fire. To say the least she had a reason to panic.

When my hubby got to the farm half of the hay was in flames. He did pull out about 60 bales and saved them. The sheriff's deputies were nice enough to block off the road and let him just run back and forth across the road to get them out of the way. The local volunteer fire department tried to wet the rest of the bales and contain the fire to help my hubby have time to get the bales out of harms way.

Insurance will pay for the hay and we have enough in other stacks to feed all winter. The only gripe is that we literally watched our hard work go up in smoke.

Thankfully to the Sheriff and volunteer fire department we did not loose all 122 in that stack. 

Oh it all started because one hay bale was a little too wet. The fire marshal told my hubby that it takes 6 weeks for hay to combust. We always thought a week or two would be out of danger. Well it has been 6 weeks and 4 days.


Just another week on the farm right? God Bless

Looking for my next painting

I was flipping through old pictures to find some good artwork. I always say to take tons of pictures. Thought I would share a few from many years ago.

                    Here is my hubby when he was younger with his favorite dog. Sam was smart and helped put cows in, could get through a hot wire and road on the back of a truck at crazy speeds. The old dog looked like a coyote though and once or twice coyote hunters almost let their hunting dogs out on him.  We miss him but in his old age he ran out in front of a car. It killed him instantly.

          The picture of the truck window when brother and I went mudding. I needed pictures to start art that college semester and he took me though the fields so I could get some. I asked "You think dad will notice?" talking about his truck as we put up the fence. "Naw, work is distracting him now." Brother told me. We look up and across the road our cattle herd sticks its head up over the fence and jumps the fence into the neighbors wheat field. We had to call dad to help up get them back in the pasture. We didn't get in trouble but he did notice what we had done that afternoon.

This is a cool picture of my hubby's equipment. I am going to have to ask what you call it again. I think it is so neat looking. My hubby calls me crazy but says it works well when pulled behind the tractor to break up the ground.  This is it the next painting.

Have a good week and God Bless.

Hay stacking and Painting a Model T

Well hay is bailed and plowing begins but that means time is not slowing down. The hay must be stacked and counted and the fence built around the new hay stacks. My daughter loves to run the bails when we can. She is about two rows away from my husband stacking them. With all this going on I did sneak a painting into the middle of life.

Of course you know me I start with my aquafix and my mask and lay my painting out. 

This has a few steps in here. I added the rust red and used a dark umber for the shadows in the car. I used a non transparent color for the glaze this time. Since I did that I thinned it down a WHOLE lot. I also painted ultramarine for the dark areas. It gives a richer color than just Payne's Gray.

I added my glaze of Payne's Gray and a light color in the background. Also a little in the shine of the chrome.

I know this is a big jump but I painted without having a camera around. Rule to learn. 

Value rule. 1. Air is lightest. 2. flat areas are 2nd lightest. 3. Slanted areas are third value. While your vertical areas have the darker values in them.

Praise God in his sanctuary;

    praise him in his mighty heavens.
 Praise him for his acts of power;
    praise him for his surpassing greatness.

Psalms 150:1-2

Drawing out a Model T

 I just thought you would like a glimpse into the good times of farming. Well maybe not good times but precious for sure. This little boy is having trouble getting milk so we have him and his cow up to help them along. This is a cousin and my little girl feeding him a bottle. Hopefully the cow will be able to nurse him soon.

Well back to the drawing board. I like to work up two sketches at a time. It keeps me motivated and I feel comfortable with the idea of having the what next question answered. Also when I mix up aquafix I can paint both at once. I also mask them on the same time to. Less clean up.

 The model T is my first to be completed. I like the layout and the aquafix done. I will show you as it develops.


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God Bless.

Working on Landscapes

Hay has keep us going til all times of the day. My husband has broke almost all the belts on the baler and lots of other parts. This has been a rough hay season. Since it has he has asked me to cut hay with a pull behind swather. No problem; until I ran the swather into the back of his flat bed truck. Oops! Well am I fired? NO I just get to practice more.

Since I have been in the field this week I have not got anything on eBay and time is short..er than normal. So I have started worked on a few small landscapes. These are 5 X 7 and in progress.

On this first one, I am not done, but I worked wet into wet. I started by using clean water and just washing the whole sky in it. Then I started adding my dark colors all while the paint was wet. Last I added my warm colors in the same way. I need to add the land and may be a few highlights but it is mostly done.

On the next painting I did it much different. I started with the lighter colors. The yellow and oranges were added first.

Using the same color I outlined the lower cloud.

While that dried I wet the farthest area in my picture and laid a LIGHT wash of purple at top and orange at bottom.

 Then I worked on the clouds with ultramarine blue and purple. Trying to stay away from my wet warm colors I worked around everything.

With that to wet I went to my 3rd painting and add the sky. Wetting the paper I added a cerulean blue, purple and Payne's gray. My goal was to leave a little white to imply clouds.

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Getting Cattle Up

Farming is in hay season again. The millet that we planted is short but starting to put out seed heads. We have to cut it before that. So we cut some down.... And it Rained, and rained. Four and a half inches later we have a feild of cut hay laying in water.  So painting time has been far and few between this week.

On top of hay, we check cows at least twice a week to daily. Two cows came up with soar hooves so we need to get the heard up and see what is rong with thier hooves. So we gathered up and rounded the heard up. Since we had so many willing helpers (kids) to go I stayed with the trailor and watched.

While I sat on the trailor watching the guys and kids rounding the heard up. THis was the sun setting across the road. I always want to paint these landscapes but have not taken the time to.

They walked in and sorted the cows. We took the hurt ones yo the house to doctor.

Painting a John Deere

This is crazy. My Brother's girlfriend went to the farm store and left her two blue healers on the back of the truck. Nothing new, they are well behaved and stay. When she comes out the girl blue healer is all bristled up and the boy is no where to be seen. She drives all over town and finally gives up looking for him. On her way to a small town near by, She see her dog in a mans passenger seat. She yells at him to come and he loads on her truck. The man speeds off. That is crazy.

I am going to work backwards today. My first tip is never miss a chance to photograph clouds or landscapes that you like. You can use them. These clouds were last night.

  I am going to talk about Waiting by the Gate. I want to show you what I had and how it came together. This is the tractor that I used. So I had to work around his decorations and find a better background.

 When I went through my landscapes this is what caught my eye. I liked the layers of depth and the barn in the back.

When I put it together I moved the picture over so it looked like this was beside the gate. I put some background with it but I used the reference pictures above to paint from. Also I worked with what I knew the light would do. One picture was taken on a bright day about noon and the other was a afternoon about six. SO I had to make the lighting look right on it all.

When it is all said and done here was the finished product. Waiting by the gate is $ 180 , Watercolor Sealed on Aquabord at 18 X 14 inches. Contact me if your interested.

Just a Swallow of a day is on eBay. This is the last day Good Luck